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Five ways you can use embedded BI for business

Embedded BI (Business Intelligence) is the
latest buzz word for tech savvy business leaders. The interest in this concept isn’t just hype.
There are many ways you can use embedded BI to enhance your business. For the purposes of this
article, we’ll define the term as “Real-time reporting of transactional and operational data from
business applications/processes that delivers insights to support smarter
decision-making.”

What are some of the types of reports you could
access with embedded BI? What industries or departments can benefit from the use of these new
tools? Let’s take a look at a few examples that may give you ideas for how to use this technology
in your own business:

#1
Sell, Sell, Sell

One popular use for embedded BI is in the
customer service and sales sphere. If a call center representative has a customer on the phone for
any reason, they have an opportunity to cross sell that customer additional products and services.
A new call center employee might go through a training session where they are taught which
products/services to offer based on previous reports showing what customers are most likely to buy.
That’s the old-fashioned way of passing on information. With embedded BI, each call center rep has
access to live data showing what the customer currently on the phone is most likely to buy. This
information is based on a comparison of their customer profile (demographic identifiers, past
purchases, etc.) with other, similar customers.

Since the reporting is real-time, it
automatically captures nuances that historical reporting can’t. For example, let’s say there was a
major story in a Chicago newspaper that raised awareness about a certain issue for which your
company has a solution among its family of products. This could greatly increase the chances that a
customer in Chicago would make a decision to buy that solution within the following 2-3 days. Your
company wouldn’t even have to be aware of why more
Chicago-based customers are buying that particular product. Embedded BI would make the trend
immediately apparent and allow you to jump on the opportunity to increase sales.

#2 Go
Lean or Go Home

These days, businesses are relying more and more
on lean manufacturing and just-in-time supply chain management principles. Operating this close to
the wire can cut costs – but it also greatly increases the risk of having insufficient inventory.
Sometimes, even getting an update on supply chain activity at the end of each day isn’t fast enough
to support intelligent decision making. Embedded BI that features instant reporting from every node
of the supply chain can help keep everything flowing smoothly. When this kind of BI becomes the
norm, the greater transparency makes it easier for problems to be identified and corrected. For
example, a retail manager could instantly see if there was a bottle-neck in logistics for their
region for a specific product. They could also see instantly if another area location has an
oversupply that could be diverted to cover the gap. Real time BI makes real time collaboration
simpler.

#3 The
Living Web

A particularly helpful aspect of embedded BI for
large enterprises is the ability to coordinate activities across departments. Healthcare is an
example of an industry where this is particularly relevant. The average hospital has a stream of
workflows that are deeply dependent on one another. For example, if the sterilization department
has an equipment malfunction in an autoclave, this could delay dozens of surgeries. When decision
makers have access to reports that clearly show the real-time status of the web of interdependent
and interconnected information, they can choose which course of action will lead to the least
disruption. On a more advanced level, they may also be able to compare current events to past
patterns and identify upcoming problems before they spiral out of control.

#4
Spend Human Capital Wisely

HR is another sector where embedded BI is
becoming popular. In this context, it’s the ability to pull, compile, and interpret embedded BI
data from multiple applications that’s most attractive. Such reporting could make it possible to
manage labor resources effectively in time-critical situations. For example, some large firms have
a sick call-in line where employees can
report that they won’t be coming to work due to illness. Imagine the information from that line
being combined with information from operations that listed the relative importance of the project
or task scheduled for each employee that day. Along with that data, HR would also see which
employees currently on-site have the skills required to handle each necessary task. This would
allow for rapid re-deployment of labor within or across departments.

#5
Don’t Blink

Logistics is an obvious industry where real-time
reporting is helpful for managing distribution. However, embedded BI is even more critical for
safety and compliance purposes. Many companies already use embedded GPS data to keep tabs on
drivers and make sure they don’t exceed the number of allowable hours of operation. That’s
important for limiting fatigue-related accidents. But logging the number of hours a driver has been
on the road is just scratching the surface of what’s possible. One firm in Australia (Optalert)
actually creates special glasses for drivers to wear that track eye and eyelid movement to detect
early signs of drowsiness. This information is reported to the logistics operations center so
drivers can be instructed to get off the road and take a break. Obviously, this type of data
collection is very industry specific. However, it highlights the fact that the uses for embedded BI
are limited only by your imagination. What new devices could your industry use to collect critical
data?

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